


This Is Where I Leave You

by Potterology



Category: Wynonna Earp (TV)
Genre: F/F, Family, Family Drama, Funerals, Gen, This got way sadder than I expected, homophobia tw
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-22
Updated: 2017-10-22
Packaged: 2019-01-21 08:28:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,684
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12453486
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Potterology/pseuds/Potterology
Summary: Nothing has changed. Not the line of poplar trees around the neighbourhood, not the quiet Stepford Wives streets. Take her back fifteen years and it may as well be the same kids playing in the front yards.The house has a red door instead of a green one; the fifties white picket fence has been replaced with a short dark wooden post to post; there are no longer pristine rows of yellow roses growing in the garden, peonies and tulips taking their place. The house has been repainted since she lived there. (Top left window. That was her room. There will be basketball trophies shoved in a box in the attic somewhere, leftover clothes handed off to Goodwill years ago no doubt, an embarrassing Hansen poster laid to rest in a landfill in Fort Worth.)





	This Is Where I Leave You

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kibbledor](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kibbledor/gifts).



> This got a lot sadder than I thought, to be honest. For reference: Corey Stoll/Shane, Cynthia Nixon/Rose, John Goodman/Frank.

Francis Haught was a big man; a construction worker all his life, with thick forearms and a waistline like a Redwood, who drove a sixteen-foot bed Ford F-150 bearing a battered Reagan bumper sticker from the eighties and a Cowboys helmet swinging from around the rearview. He liked Canadian bacon, sported a neat moustache and spent exactly one hundred dollars once a month at the Crazy Diamond for the last six years in a row. Frank dies on a Wednesday afternoon, a soft heart attack in a renovated house in Mesquite, Texas and the call comes to the station, Ruth at the front desk leaving the news on a fluorescent pink Post-It taped to her desk, a sorry look on her face. _Your brother called. Your father passed away this morning. The funeral is this weekend._  

“Who died?” Wynonna asks, doughnut half shoved in her mouth, half-laughing. Nicole doesn’t think before she answers simply: _my dad_.

The sinking feeling does not lessen when she gets home, the awful pressure behind her heart twinging with every beat, an uncomfortable muscle spasm in her chest which threatens a sob but it never quite comes to fruition. Silence is easy to get used to. Silence is easy to ignore, to let lie, to agree with, they’ve been doing it for seven years now – so Nicole doesn’t cry, doesn’t call Waverly, doesn’t do anything. Just sits, in silence, on her couch and stays still. Because seven years has flown and she didn’t even notice the absence until she noticed it.

An hour goes by and Nicole moves when Waverly wraps her arms around her shoulders, whispering platitudes and _Wynonna told me_ and warm kisses that if this were any other time, any other circumstance, it might spark something. But for now, Waverly manages to coax her up and into a shower and into her ancient Academy t-shirt and into bed.

Sleep comes easier than she thinks it should and guilt is the first thing she feels when she opens her eyes, Waverly kissing her awake.

“Will you come with me?” Nicole asks carefully, eyes squeezed shut, pinching the bridge of her nose; there is a sigh and she feels a forehead press against her temple, _of course_ mumbled back. They get on a plane, they stay in Dallas and Waverly does not ask why she has not cried. (Why she will not cry, why she cannot. Seven years since an angry voice told her to _get out_ , seven years since a slammed door which sounded so final but Nicole had no idea would really be the last time, seven years since she cried over Frank Haught in the front seat of her third-hand Buick, eighteen years old and heartbroken. The old man was dead. It wouldn’t be any good crying over him now.)

“What was he like?” Waverly asks. 

It is late enough to be early to some, the two of them wide awake the morning of the funeral, Nicole on her back staring a hole into the ceiling. She can feel her girlfriend’s soft gaze like a touch in the dim light just starting to peak through the curtains, a hand outstretched across the mattress which doesn’t quite reach, hesitant to make contact and break the spell of the morning. Nicole shrugs, glances at Waverly, who’s lying on her side and attentive to every word.

“He liked football, voted Republican and probably should have cut down on the breakfast meats,” she replies shortly. It isn’t intentional, the bite to her voice, but there is an intense desire to pack up and run as far from Texas as she can manage, to disappear back into the midst of the Canadian Rockies and pretend nothing south of the border exists. Waverly touches her then, a light brush of fingertips at her collarbone.

“You don’t talk about them. Your family.”

 “They don’t talk about me.”

And that’s the end of the conversation. They dress in silence. Waverly wears a plain black dress and wraps her hair in a bun, the kind which reminded Nicole of the Solstice party and the time she punched Champ Hardy in the face, beautiful and as reserved as she has ever been. Nicole manages tailored trousers and short heels and a black silk blouse. It’s October and still eighty-five degrees, so they drive with the windows down and Nicole still hates country music.

Nothing has changed. Not the line of poplar trees around the neighbourhood, not the quiet Stepford Wives streets. Take her back fifteen years and it may as well be the same kids playing in the front yards.

The house has a red door instead of a green one; the fifties white picket fence has been replaced with a short dark wooden post to post; there are no longer pristine rows of yellow roses growing in the garden, peonies and tulips taking their place. The house has been repainted since she lived there. (Top left window. That was her room. There will be basketball trophies shoved in a box in the attic somewhere, leftover clothes handed off to Goodwill years ago no doubt, an embarrassing Hansen poster laid to rest in a landfill in Fort Worth.) The door is open and Nicole parks behind a Corvette she recognises as her Uncle Russell’s, the bumper sticker proudly declaring _My Daughter is an Honour Roll Student!_ Elaine is in high school now. _Jesus_.

Nicole stops Waverly just before they walk in.  “It’s Texas.” Her voice is quiet, low, meant for the two of them and it sounds almost like an explanation, a plea and an apology all at once. With a little more insistence, a light squeeze of her girlfriend’s hand, Nicole locks eyes.  “It’s _Texas_.” Waverly nods like she understands but Nicole thinks maybe she doesn’t get it at all. (Wynonna only had to blink; thinks they are nauseating because it’s _cute_.)

They walk in together and the foot gap between them is _not_ lost on either woman.

Inside, there is a line of mourners holding various drinks – gins and waters and a few whiskeys – chatting gently as they approach through the hall, and under the archway is a shrewd, too-thin looking woman with a glassy, heavily medicated look in her eyes. She is tall and greying, but there is enough red in her hair to recognise familiar: Rose Hess-Haught. A whip of a woman. Cynical and critical, but with a kinder heart than most would attribute. Nicole knows when her mother lays eyes because her throat constricts and suddenly, she is eighteen and yelling _how can you just stand there_ and it’s the same fucking look. Rose swallows. Looks away.

“Nicky?” a voice prods behind them, emerging from the kitchen heavy and broad, deeper than she remembers. 

Her brother is a tall man, taller than her. Clean shaven and bald out of necessity, a receding hairline forcing him to a number one all over, in a suit which screams _I’ve been hung up in the backseat of a car for two years_. As much their father as Nicole is their mother, the same careful look, the same penchant for chasteness; the last time they spoke, he had been twenty-three and going to school in Arizona.

“Shane. Hey.” As far as first words go, it isn’t the worst start; neither rush to an embrace, each the foreigner, stood frozen by expectations and _seven years_. His eyes flick from her to Waverly and back. Nicole starts. “Waves, this is my brother Shane. Shane, this is Waverly, my --” Though they have reached out towards each other to shake hands in greeting, the hesitation isn’t missed.  “— _girlfriend_.” Shane pulls back like Waverly is a hot stove top, not quite a full body recoil, but sudden enough to send the message.

There is a long, long pause. Waverly shifts and thinks of Champ and his drug-induced anger, the bitterness in his voice when he spat _she’s dating a cop_ , how her heart had dropped. 

Shane exhales slowly through his nose, eyes flicking back to his sister, to the roof, to his feet. His voice is low and mindful of mourners.  “This is _dad’s funeral_ , Nicky.”  _What the fuck are you trying to pull_ sits under the words and Nicole seethes.

“Can we not do this?” she manages to sound tired, civil through exhaustion. Shane seems to hear himself and sighs again, swallowing and scrubbing a hand over his face. Waverly thinks he looks very much like a man drowning on dry land; haggard and harassed, someone who wants to be there about as much as they do. It hurts on behalf.

“Okay. Yeah, okay.”  There’s a glance between them and Shane looks like he is on the verge of apologizing when a sudden influx of movement draws their attention; mourners steadily taking their seats in front of a deep mahogany coffin set in the living room. It’s a big house, Waverly notices then, one which speaks to the affluent neighbourhood it is situated in, one which tells her it will have a luxurious backyard and a basketball hoop affixed over the garage door, a car in the driveway and one under a tarp in the garage itself, a pool on the side. Waverly imagines Shane as popular, thinks he must have held epic keg parties that will still get brought up at his high school reunion. Nicole a little sister who was liked based on his reputation, who probably had older friends because of him. Waverly wonders what it would have been like if they had met back then, if they would be what they are now or if it could have played out differently.

She tries to imagine Wynonna in this room, talking to Nicole’s brother. How Wynonna was the fuck-up of their family, who everyone labelled crazy and wild, next to this hunched quiet man who Waverly thinks has never met a fight he couldn’t shrug off. Wynonna wasn’t the type to lay down and take it; Shane seems the sort of man who was happy to be carpet.

Nicole nudges her way to the back of the neatly aligned seats and holds her hands in her lap so tightly clasped, Waverly can see white knuckles. Her mother looks back once and frowns at the brunette, Shane’s arm around her frail shoulders. (That is the only word Waverly can think of when she looks at Rose: _frail_.) There is a pretty blonde woman with Nicole’s eyes next to them who keeps glancing back and trying to catch the couple with an encouraging smile; an obscenely overweight man is after her, a devastated teenager crying into his shoulder. _Karen, Russell and Elaine_ , Nicole supplies in a whisper. _Dad’s sister and brother_. Behind them is Sadie and Jack, her mother’s younger sister and husband, Taylor and Samantha their twin red-headed girls. The rest of the guests are flotsam and jetsam, work friends from the construction company and a few high school acquaintances from Frank’s football years.

They are both brought back to the room as the priest finishes his spiel and Shane stands, rumpled and red-eyed, a frayed piece of paper in his hands. He looks very much like he has practiced this speech in a vanity mirror, over and over in his car on the drive home, in the shower this morning, in his head in the kitchen.

Nicole tenses, unable to stop the roll of fear and hope and nausea.

 _My dad is dead_. The coffin is so acutely polished, the Texan sun bounces through the net curtains and off the top and right into her eyes, blinding and overwhelming.

“I’ve thought a lot this week about what I would say. About what stories I would tell, about whether or not to make a joke. I’ve thought about what kind of man Frank Haught was, what kind of father. And I came to the conclusion that he would want me to be honest. So, here goes.” Shane looks over at them, fleeting and quick, but enough that he has to clear his throat. “He wasn’t a great man. Not really a great dad, either. He was rude and strict and stubborn. He liked to pick fights and he hated it when he lost. Frank was, for the most part, a jackass.”  The crowd titters nervously, the way people do when told the truth. Shane swallows. “But he never missed an anniversary. Never forgot a birthday. He came to every swim meet, every basketball game. He taught his kids how to drive and cooked dinner on Tuesdays and Saturdays. He always rooted for the Cowboys, even when they sucked, because he was loyal.” He’s looking at Nicole again, like he is trying to convince her of something intangible and unsaid, something neither of them can really quantify.

“Loyal, not kind. Forgiving, but not easy. Calm, but not passive, not in anything he did. My dad wasn’t the best guy and I’ve got no illusions about it, but… He was my dad. And I love him. And I’m gonna miss him.”

 

*

 

Waverly doesn’t mean to snoop, but she cannot help the drive of her curiosity; Nicole leaves for the bathroom when the service wraps, disappearing upstairs, and after a few minutes of awkward conversation with some bar-buddy of the deceased, she decides to go looking.

It is a lot of the same rich mahogany and framed photos, Nicole a glaring absence. She notices Shane must have been married at some point and has a little boy who is conspicuously _not here_ today; there is a litany of family portraits, all done when the eldest child was still an _only_ child; doilies and a painting of a carnival bought at a silent auction. It’s very Southern, very American. Every voice she hears is the same low drawl, an exaggerated version of Nicole’s subtle dip. It isn’t until Waverly steps into the _only_ room upstairs where the door is not slightly ajar that it hits her: there is a lot about Nicole she does not know. 

The room is as much a shrine to their prodigal daughter as Willa’s was; a fine layer of dust sits across everything, even the bedspread. There is a _Hansen_ poster on one wall, a 2008 _Bowling for Soup_ ticket stub pinned next to it, and the sheets are blue and slightly rumpled, the way they get when someone sits on it after being freshly made. There are sport trophies – basketball, Waverly realises and smiles as a fingertip traces the gold engraved _MVP: N. Haught_ – and an assortment of teenage angst books, the Perks of Being a Wallflower and Emily Dickinson. A picture, her and her parents, fourteen and fresh faced in a neatly pressed ROTC uniform. Waverly imagines a star athlete to match her head cheerleader, lost for a moment in some warped One Tree Hill fantasy, and almost laughs at herself. 

It is all so very much _Nicole_ , Waverly gets distracted and never notices the door shift behind her. 

“Frank wanted to box it all up,” Rose says gently, a slight waiver in her voice. Waverly starts and withdraws, stood frozen at the foot of the bed. “I wouldn’t let him. Just in case. Then a year became two, then three. I stopped hoping she would come back, but I couldn’t pretend she was never here in the first place.”

 _You never talk about your family. They never talk about me._  

This feels too intimate. A secret in the telling which could so easily be lost in translation. It makes her acutely aware of how much she is intruding and cringes at the thought, unsure how to get away from the crushing pressure Rose brings into the small room. She wants to reach out and hug her girlfriend’s mother, an urge in dire conflict with the desire to scream do you have any idea how goddamned perfect your daughter is? Waverly wants to slap and beat and shout at the cruel, evil world and ask why it would ever ask Nicole to be anyone other than the absolute best person Waverly has ever known? 

“Shane said you were – together?” A loaded question, hesitant and asked without making eye contact until it’s out in the open between them. A pleading look in the older woman’s face _tell me no, say it isn’t true_ that Waverly utterly despises. She nods. Rose accepts it with an indifferent slide and they both exhale slow. “Good. I’m glad she’s got somebody.”

And then Waverly is alone.

 

*

 

“Do you remember when he tried to clean the gutters after having back surgery?”

Nicole snorts into her water and shoots a glance at her brother. They’re in the backyard, on the short deck, looking out onto the impeccably manicured garden; assorted kids’ toys litter past the neat peonies, Sam and Taylor chasing each other around and filling the yard with laughter instead of the slow shuffle of death that seems to be crowding the house; they have a barbecue set up on the side. Trade the black lace hats in with red, white and blue party poppers, and it could be Fourth of July. Brisket and beer. Everything her dad would have loved. 

“He fell off the roof and spent a month in recovery. Got mad every time he tried to go to the bathroom.” 

She has spoken to her aunts and uncles, talked to Elaine about majors, been asked a thousand questions about Canada. Shane huffs a laugh and swigs his beer. It’s a nice silence, if a little awkward, an almost decade between them dissolving at a glacial pace. They both know a fact: if the old man hadn’t died, they would still exist in the strange cold gap of recently vacated space, but in the time they have been stood here, Nicole learns.

He manages a golf supply store in Arizona; his wife, Sarah, is now his ex-wife; and he has a son named Drew that he sees on weekends. She tells him about Purgatory – some of it, anyway – and being a cop, and he says Uncle Russell found her name in a paper while they were visiting Calgary, and they both carefully avoid the topic of Waverly. It’s Texas, she had said at the front door, and it is _still fucking Texas_ , dead parent or not, the wound still deep and as tender as it was seven years ago.

“I missed you, Nicky,” Shane says, watching Taylor wrestle Sam into a headlock. Her heart sticks in her throat. Cloying and choking, as the same phantom pain under her ribs jumps again and lances through her whole body. “I know we don’t see eye to eye. And I might not necessarily agree with your --” Shane gulps another mouthful of beer, choosing his words, studiously not looking at her. “— _lifestyle_ , but I missed my little sister.” Maybe the sentiment is well meant – she is sure it must be the nicest thing he has said to her since they cut ties – but it burns so deep, she wants to punch him. Because this is always going to be the crux of the issue: they consider her wrong in some way, consider it all a choice she made to be the rebel, to be different. They will always think of her as a disappointment, whether they intend to or not, it will always be written in their faces. Her father had spat with hatred, an irrational anger at something he could not control. Her mother stood in the same archway she had today and stared glassy-eyed and passive at a wall. Shane never called when they inevitably told him the news.

“Mom and Dad kicked me out, Shane,” she says, turning towards him, forcing his eye line to her. “You know, when you went off to college, I ran after your car for three blocks. You used to write me letters from State because I liked the idea of getting mail, even though you knew it was cheesy. When I was in eighth grade, people thought I was the coolest kid in school because the senior high school guys always offered me a ride on account of _you_. I thought I could always count on you to have my back.” It’s with no small amount of bitterness that she meets his eyes with all the sincerity she is capable of in the world. “Mom and Dad kicked me out, but _you left me_. My big brother.”

He almost says something but she is gone before he gets the chance, and when Waverly appears at the bottom of the stairs, Nicole grabs her hand and drags her out the front door.

It was a mistake coming here at all. Of course it was. The ghosts of everything don’t settle just because the dust has, scar tissue opening and re-opening again, bleeding deeper and longer every time she comes back to this place. It’s like Nedley says: bad guys don’t become good guys just because they have a change of scenery.

 

*

 

It is a silent ride back to the hotel. They are silent when Waverly kisses her, silent when they undress, silent after the sweat cools and the sheets warm and they might be the only people in the entire world at all. Nicole shuts her eyes and lets the solid, steady thump of Waverly’s heart lull her into a state of calm; it’s not quite peaceful, body thrumming with the tension of the day and her conversation with Shane, the hurt built to a crescendo in her chest threatening tears at every given opportunity. There are fingertips in her hair, long soothing strokes, and occasional kisses pressed to the top of her head.

Waverly talks, slowly and gently, about nothing much at all. Shane texts to ask if they want to come to dinner the next time they’re in Dallas and Nicole agrees, but only because it sounds like he’s _trying_ and _trying_ is a two-way street. They fly home in the morning.

That’s when it hits.

Her mother never spoke to her. Everybody else, with one exception.

Nicole, in 14B, cries.


End file.
